HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



243 



CHAPTER XIX. 



American Hereford Record 



The Hereford cattle had become so numerous 

 in America by 1879 that it became a matter of 

 necessity to have a Herd Book in which to re- 

 cord their pedigrees. 



The English Herd Book was commenced by 

 Mr. Eyton ; he published the first and second 

 volumes, recording only bulls, numbered from 

 1 to 901. Mr. Powell followed him with the 

 first part of Volume III, up to number IjlS?. 

 At this point Mr. Thomas Duckham of Baysham 

 Court, Ross, took up the work, and published 

 the Herd Book from 1,138 of bulls up to the 

 close of Volume IX. Eyton and Powell in their 

 work recorded only bulls. Mr. Duckham, start- 

 ing at part second, in Volume III, recorded 

 cows as well as bulls. 



At the close of Volume IX the breeders of 

 Hereford cattle in England formed the society, 

 termed the Hereford Herd Book Society, bought 

 of Mr. Duckham, on March 5, 1878, the copy- 

 right and continued the publication. Mr. Duck- 

 ham commenced the publication of the Herd 

 Book in 1857, and was at that time a tenant 

 farmer at Baysham Court, in the town of Ross, 

 in Herefordshire. He was a prominent and 

 skillful breeder of Hereford cattle. 



The first president of the Hereford Herd 

 Book Society was J. H. Arkwright (H 128), 

 Hampton Court, Herefordshire. Vice-president 

 was the Earl of Coventry (jj 129), Croomc 

 Court, Worcester. The council consisted of 

 twenty-four prominent and well-known breed- 

 ers. The editing committee : Sir J. Russell 

 Bailey, Mr. T. Duckham, Mr. H. Haywood and 

 Mr. J. Hill. The secretary, S. W. Urwick 

 (^ 130), Leinthal, Ludlow. 



Mr. Thomas Duckham was prominent in 

 keeping the Herefords before the public, 

 through the press, and was the means of dis- 

 tributing large numbers of them to Australia 

 and other parts of the world. There is no 

 man to whom the Hereford breeders, and 

 through them the stock breeders of the world, 

 are more indebted. In 1876, at our great Cen- 

 tennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, the man- 



agers of that exhibit sent to the English Gov- 

 ernment for a man competent to act as judge on 

 the Hereford breed of cattle that should be 

 exhibited at that show. The Duke of Rich- 

 mond, then at the head of the Agricultural De- 

 partment, selected Mr. Duckham for that posi- 

 tion, and he visited this country, accredited 

 from that government. 



(U 131) Taking the English Hereford Herd 

 Book as the foundation, I, in 1879, com- 

 menced the compilation of the American Here- 

 ford Record. I realized that in any thor- 

 oughbred race of cattle the cow was as import- 

 ant in securing the purity of the breed as the 

 bull, and that she should be equally well identi- 

 fied in the pedigree of any animal. To secure 

 this identification we could not see any better 

 wav than to give each cow a number as well as 

 the bull. 



To avoid the great repetition common to other 

 herd books, that was a consequence of giving 

 the entire pedigree with every entry, each entry 

 in our book consisted of only sire and dam, with 

 their Herd Book numbers, the breeder's and 

 owner's names, and date of birth. 



The Hereford "Times," England, comment- 

 ing on this, says : "As everyone knows, Amer- 

 icans never like following a beaten track, and 

 this volume is certainly most unique in its 

 arrangement, and presents a very different ap- 

 pearance from anything that we have ever 

 seen.'' 



The first volume came from our press at 

 Beecher, 111., in 1880, and we thought that, 

 considering the great service which had been 

 done the Hereford breed of cattle by the Hon. 

 Thomas Duckham, that he was entitled to the 

 place of honor in the frontispiece of the first 

 volume. 



There were also twenty-one illustrations of 

 prominent Hereford cattle. Volume II was is- 

 sued in 1882, and carried the number of entries 

 up to number 6.415, the frontispiece being 

 Mr. Benjamin Tomkins, the oldest known Here- 

 ford breeder, that being followed by the earliest 



